Saturday, June 8, 2013

Here’s an interesting photo that been doing the rounds online, apparently taken after an Air China Boeing 757-200 was involved in a recent incident.

According to The Aviation Herald, the aircraft (registration B-2856) was performing flight CA-4307 from Chengdu to Guangzhou on 4th June 2013, when “a large bang was heard from the nose section of the aircraft and the aircraft performance worsened”.

The Boeing 757 was returned to Chengdu for safety reasons and post flight examinations confirmed that the aircraft collided with a foreign object… but what type of object would cause this much damage?

A bird strike has been ruled out (due to lack of blood, feathers or other remains) and theories about the object have ranged from a chunk of ice to UFOs… some have even suggested Iron Man was responsible.

In all seriousness, what do you think could have caused this? Leave your comments below and check out more photos from the damaged aircraft on my Facebook page. Remember to like it and stay updated with the latest aviation stories, photos and videos! Click here to visit.

It was from a UFO!!! A UFO was encircling the globe looking for places for habitation, when one alien fell ill and had to be ejected from the UFO. This alien hit the nose cone, while he was thrown out and the other aliens exploded him away with their death ray (set on low intensity) so there wont be any evidence!!!!

This is a long haul flight deep into Chinese interior, about 774 DME at fl260, what you will find are weather balloons, no need to spy into your own interior, probably NOTAMS on balloon activity were unavailable to the crew, hence the probable collision.

Robeel, after reading the article and examining what I see I have come to a conclusion to this case. Static discharge, if the aircraft was high enough in the atmosphere say...in the flight levels perhaps in somewhat of a thunderstorm, maybe a static discharge may have taken place in-flight. What I'm saying is a lightening strike "the pressure from the rapidly heated and expanded air had done the damage." :-)

This type of failure is attributed to a repair to the cone. Supports on the inside of the cone are improperly or insecurely placed and between the ram air and pressure differentials during flight, the cone will collapse with no external signs of impact at all. I've been told it makes one heck of a bang too! I am an old China airline rep and we saw this a few times. This was confirmed by the airframe rep on site.

Birds are known to migrate at such heights, specially the long distance migrants and many a bird strike happen with no tell tale signs. It could have been a large bird+high TAs at that height. I've seen some which were worse in my days as a fast jet pilot.Although I wont discount the theory of the cone radome giving way, in which case it would be a reason for worry not only for the airline (very little schedule maintenance can do), but a greater worry about design defect / deficiency for the OEM. Other operators of the B-757 need to watch out.

I would be checking the maintenance record on the dome. Could be an improper repair. Impact would have been seen by the crew if it was a daytime incident. I am sure there also would have been collateral damage towards the rear of the aircraft (wings and tail).

I would like to see the inner structure. Most likely if the core was replaced the replacement core was not spliced correctly, may have not been the correct core, improper laminate, improper placement schedule, lack of adhesive or inadequate curing (lack of pressure or improper temperature/time to cure).

Seen lots of this in the field. Again without seeing the backside its hard to tell.

I agree with your explantion. A poor previous repair or an indiscovered previous damage/impact made the material very soft to a point that can not take the air loads sound as a very good and reasonable explation.Cheers

Hard to tell from that angle but it could be a structural collapse of the Honeycomb structure, especially looking at the symmetrical shape. Impact damage of some sorts would leave some kind of penetration especially at that speed at FL260.

Looks like a tire tread scrape on the nose. I would say it was hit on the ground by a jet way, belt loader or some other ground service machine and then the crease caused on the ground made the nose cone "folded" in flight.

I remember an incident in Indian Airlines when the aircraft was hit by a bird and the wind shield was sheered off. The commander of the flight brought the aircraft to her destination without any further damage. It is only providence. Perhaps this is one such incident.

I'm sure nothing did hit this nose radome during flight...Probably it started from small area of outer skin disbonded from honeycomb core & mislooked by a line inspector and became bigger this area of disbond/ delamination of honeycomb sandwich until it collapsed caused by air speed during flight.

My guess is that this is indeed some kind of implosion, probably caused by ram-air, in conjunction with a weak area in the nose-section. ( for example corrosion on the stringers/stiffners, cracks in the stringers/stiffners and so on...). The Ram air hitting the nose section has a huge impact, and the impact force has enough power to create a grow of the size of a small crack. In the worst case this can cause a mailfunction of the part (like a stringer or stifner), so the only material left on the nose-section, will be the skin, wich can bend easily by ram-air, if it is not supported by an intact stringer.Another thing i was reading in the responds of people: the space behind the cone is not pressurized, wich is true, so impacting (imploding, folding, collapsing, whatever how you prefer to call it), is very easy with an impact force of the ram-air during flight.And one thing is sure: an imploded area of this size WILL affect your flight behaviour because of the aerodynamic loss on this area.The larger and/or deeper your dent, the worse your flight behaviour will be.

Providing there is no bird potae evidence, and or sharp dents etc.yes as stated above a few times check the maintenance history. My speculation would be DELAMINATION.Although I would not rule out an improperly done repair but repairs to radomes are generally small areas or could even be multiple areas. A repair that shows signs of delamination or improper fiber weave layups IE: improper 90 and or 45 deg fiber weave layup or improperly mixed resin or curing procedures per repair manual. Now lets say there were no repairs to the radome confirmed from aircraft records history. Delamination in this area would be a major factor to consider mixed with aircraft speed. The radome imploded inward to structure that was not delaminated. I would suspect the fiber weave if done properly held the structure from opening up.And yes the implosion would make a noise. Of course there are other factors to consider such as wind speed aircraft speed whether the aircraft experienced any weather while in flight or someone just pencil wipped the regular scheduled maintenance check on the dome or there are no regular maintenance checks scheduled into the maintenance program for the radome or the interval for the checks on the radome are insuffcient to save money. Quality dept will be busy thats for certain

Either improper maintenance,inspection or a bad previous repair. I am a jet mechanic with over twenty seven years experience. I have seen this type of damage before. I believe that, the honeycomb structure of the airplanes radome failed, due to a bad previous repair, or moisture intrusion into the honeycomb structure, which was undetected for some time and caused the eventual failure at altitude and speed.I would not rule out ground equipment or ground damage, that was undetected or reported and caused the eventual failure as well. Without actually seeing or looking at the aircraft, that is my best determination as to why the radome failed.

You don't need to hit anything to cause this. That nose cone has tens of thousands of pounds of force on it in flight just from the airflow. If the supporting structure partially collapses, this would be the result.

There are obvious scrap marks on the right lower quadrant of the damaged part of the nose cone, solid evidence that it was hit by a round or elliptical object from outside the plane. So I very much doubt your theory holds water.

If its a bird then it could left any lack of blood or feathers and if its a iron objects or solid things then maybe the plane could have a possibility to explosive on the air due to the pressure at the high altitudes or it could left a hole on the nose cone. And what kind of birds that could fly at the high likes 26,000 ft ? There is no speculations is match with the plane's nose cone damage. What all we knows is just the plane has hit something on the air.

My theory regarding this event - space debris from a Chinese sounding rocket launch, possibly composite material from one of the rocket stages that was disgarded during the launch sequence, which was returning to earth when it impacted the nose of the plane. A composite material would be light enough to cause damage without puncturing the plane. Please visit my website, where you will learn about debris materials (composites & metals) that are surviving atmospheric re-entry. spacejunk.ie

with the little we can see it would be impossible to tell what caused this. we would need to take samples off the nose cone to search for bird dna and another thing i would be very interested in seeing is the inside of the nosecone and what the supports look like. this is like shooting pool in the dark.